I’ve Been Thinking

Three years ago on this very Bridge, me and my then boyfriend decided to do the thing that every couple swears they will never, ever do. We decided to pull the plug on our relationship. Give up. Royally f*ck each other over.

We sat through an awful, awful lunch – where I cried into my salad (a true sign that I was desperately unhappy if ever I did see one. The salad, not the crying!) as a pianist quite literally played the song sheet of my breaking heart – C minor.

I can’t remember the last weekend I had an entire 48 hour slot to myself. Nobody to see (and/or let down), no promises to keep and no f*cking launderette duty – thank Uncle Buck for spring. Perhaps that makes me fortunate. In fact, I know it does, what am I talking about? Seeing friends and family is just what I want to be doing. But it also means there’s little to no time left to rest up, to recharge your batteries for the week ahead and to do all the things you were meant to do before the sun showed up and tempted you away from cleaning the fridge and told you to slip into your flip flops instead. If I feel like there’s not enough of me to go round now, how on earth am I gonna feel when I have another little person to take responsibility for? When I’ve not only got to make memories for my children but I’ve got to plan the memory making before we can even make the memories in the first place. At this point in my life, I’m the least busy I’m ever going to be and yet I still feel like there’s not enough hours in the day. Weekends come and go and someone somewhere is always going to be left disappointed. First world problems? Hmm maybe, but I feel like this is more than that. I feel like this is the curse of the millennials.

First of all if you don’t know where that quote is from then you need to have a strong word with yourself – 13 Going on 30 is quite literally the best film ever. It’s even better than Madeline.

As my birthday fast approaches, I’m starting to get all kinds of reflective and nostalgic about life, as you do. Ya see, I feel like 26 is a pretty underwhelming age to be. What does it even mean? I’ll tell you what it means, it means when people ask you what you want for your birthday you respond with things like a Nutri Bullet, or a dehumidifier or you know, how about a waist? It also means that it’s been 21 years since you were zig-a-zig-ah-ing to the Spice Girls for the first time and that’s not frightening at all *dusts off the dance mat to desperately try and salvage my youth*

I love how slow snow is. It’s not in any rush, it takes its time to fill the air, find its way, suss out its surroundings and only then does it begin to settle on the ground – if it chooses to settle at all. Even with all the Christmas tributes and all the pressure to show up, deliver and make it a magical time of year, it still makes everyone wait until January to show its face. In fact the more I think about it, the more it’s like my best friend Chloe. She takes her time. Once she was three hours late for lunch, which technically makes her early for dinner but whatever. Her reason for such poor time keeping? She was finding her trousers. That’s an hour and a half per leg. This is the same girl who asked me if I thought my dog had a name for me – see, like snow, there’s just no telling where she’s heading with most the conversations we have. Then again, that’s why we’ve been best friends for all this time.

It’s also not clingy is it? It’s comfortable with separation, it doesn’t have to follow the other snowflakes even though they’re the same age. It doesn’t care which direction the others are going in because it’s having too much fun free falling. Roaming around, getting lost and getting laid (Ha, I couldn’t help myself). It loves getting distracted.

I still remember the smell of my primary school’s assembly hall: a mixture of wax crayons, those big ol’ blue P.E mats and smiley potatoes with peas. If you look closely, I bet you can still spot a few dogeared pom pom strings on the floor from majorettes club, fluffy gold stars missing in action and maybe even a few blobs of rolled up PVA glue too. Peeling it off was so satisfying. I blame Art Attack! I never did make it as a majorette – probably because I spent most of the time sat in the corner eating my after school sandwich (inevitably chicken paste if left to dad) instead of twirling my baton. Not much has changed there.

I can’t remember what I did this weekend. I struggle to link recent conversations to the right person half the time, but I do remember primary school. I remember the people that made it the best time of my life and the teachers that gave me so much more than just maths and metaphors.